The highest compact we can make with our fellow is—“Let there be truth between us two forevermore.”

I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.

You can tell more about a person by what he says about others, than you can by what others say about him!

The liar is no better than the thief, and if his mendacity takes the form of slander he may be worse than most thieves. It puts a premium upon knavery untruthfully to attack an honest man, or even with hysterical exaggeration to assail a bad man with untruth.

Life is a series of experiences, each one of which makes us bigger, even though sometimes it is hard to realize this. For the world was built to develop character, and we must learn that setbacks and griefs which endure help us in our march forward.

If it is any use to know it, I always try to write on the principle of the iceberg. There is seven-eighths of it under water for every part that shows.

How could man rejoice in victory and delight in the slaughter of men?

Extremists on all sides thrive, fed by the blood lust of centuries gone by.

We can disagree and still love each other unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist.

I am not only a pacifist but a militant pacifist. I am willing to fight for peace. Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war.

Never cross a man, not afraid to die.

One of the most pathetic—and dangerous—signs of our times is the growing number of individuals and groups who believe that no one can possibly disagree with them for any honest reason.

Life in common among people who love each other is the ideal of happiness.

Intelligent people tend to have less friends than the average person. The smarter you are, the more selective you become.

We are all full of weakness and errors; let us mutually pardon each other our follies—it is the first law of nature.

A man's friendships are one of the best measures of his worth.

Whatever you do in life, surround yourself with smart people who'll argue with you.

Be true to your work, your word, and your friend.

If you cannot be honest with yourself, there is no hope of being honest with anyone else.

Benevolence, righteousness, propriety, and knowledge are not infused into us from without.

A leader's greatness is found in bringing out greatness in others.

But what is happiness except for the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads.

The thought of only being a creature of the present and the past was troubling. I longed for a future, too, with hope in it. The desire to be free, awakened my determination to act, to think, and to speak.

The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems.

We always like those who admire us; we do not always like those whom we admire.

I have nothing but contempt for the kind of governor who is afraid, for whatever reason, to follow the course that he knows is best for the State; and as for the man who sets private friendship above the public welfare—I have no use for him, either.

When you want to help people, you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear.

In all negotiations of difficulty, a man may not look to sow and reap at once; but must prepare business, and so ripen it by degrees.

He who blames others has a long way to go on his journey. He who blames himself is halfway there. He who blames no one has arrived.

Without properly kept accounts it is impossible to maintain truth in its pristine purity.

Trust in dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.

We signal that good can be achieved amongst human beings who are prepared to trust, prepared to believe in the goodness of people.

Here must all distrust be left behind; all cowardice must be ended.

He who does not trust enough, will not be trusted.

Never was a government that was not composed of liars, malefactors and thieves.

Every kind of peaceful cooperation among men is primarily based on mutual trust and only secondarily on institutions such as courts of justice and police.

To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live accordingly to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust.

To offend a strong man, tell him a lie. To offend a weak man, tell him the truth.

Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.

It was not the truth they wanted, but an illusion they could bear to live with.

Only in men's imagination does every truth find an effective and undeniable existence. Imagination, not invention, is the supreme master of art as of life.

There are very few human beings who receive the truth, complete and staggering, by instant illumination. Most of them acquire it fragment by fragment, on a small scale, by successive developments, cellularly, like a laborious mosaic.

Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If all people all over the world would do this, it would change the earth.

The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.

A thief is a man in need. A liar is a man in fear.